Courage Campaign in the News

“We’re using this moment and Nestlé to organize opposition to certainly any sort of ground water in California being bottled for sale. [It] just doesn’t make any sense in this drought,” said Eddie Kurtz executive director of CourageCampaign.org. State Water Resources Control Board chair Felicia Marcus warns against pulling the plug on bottled water, even though she agrees that there are reasons that bottled water is problematic. She points out that bottled water is useful for the communities that don’t have tap water available to drink. “There are environmental waste reasons. There’s the fact that tap water meets stricter standards in some ways and mostly you have a lot of communities that are paying for water out the tap and drinking bottled water because of marketing, when the water from the tap is perfectly fine,” Marcus said.

The Nestle Corporation has come under fire recently for bottling and selling water during one of the most severe droughts in Western North American history. Here's the kicker, though: what they're doing is perfectly legal.

California actually tried to revoke a portion of Morongo’s license to use water from Millard Canyon starting in 2003; the tribe successfully fought that action. But with the drought and the water restrictions, the debate has restarted. Last week, the Courage Campaign, an online progressive group with 900,000 members, petitioned the state Water Resources Control Board to stop Nestlé’s bottling operations statewide.

Nestlé is wading into what may be the purest form of water risk. A unit of the $243 billion Swiss food and drinks giant is facing populist protests for bottling and selling perfectly good water in Canada and drought-stricken California.

The San Francisco Chronicle will host a gala dinner Tuesday to present its new Visionary of the Year Award to one of 13 nominees. Most of the nominees are worthy of the honor. But the selection of Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson as a candidate for a visionary award requires a willful blindness on the part of the nominating committee. Just a few weeks ago, for the second time in as many years, slammed Kaiser for violating California laws by forcing thousands of patients to endure lengthy, illegal waits for basic mental health care.

After a federal judge overturned President Barack Obama’s 2013 order extending overtime pay to domestic workers, Gov. Jerry Brown rescinded his hard-fought deal with California’s In-Home Supportive Services employees that promised to cover overtime, travel and wait time costs. Home health aides have since launched a renewed campaign against the governor, calling for equality with other workers. Their latest protest gives them their own day in court: a mock tribunal putting California on trial for its treatment of in-home caregivers. Former state Senate candidate Sandra Fluke and Paul Song, executive chairman of the Courage Campaign, are among the “jurors” for the event, 12:30 p.m on the north steps of the Capitol, which is organized by the United Domestic Workers of America.

The Montgomery County Probate Office will stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Probate Judge Steven Reed announced Wednesday. Citing Tuesday evening's ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court, Reed said he has no choice but to stop issuing the licenses.

Dr. Paul Song, executive chairman of the pro-marriage equality group Courage Campaign described the ruling as "nothing short of outrageous" in a Tuesday statement. "Once again, Alabama has put itself on the wrong side of history. We are confident that once the dust settles, marriage equality will be the law not only in Alabama but nationwide as well," Song said. "Love is love. It is not something that should be subject to being legislated or litigated."

Days after possibly the largest anti-fracking protest in history, environmentalists delivered a petition to California Gov. Jerry Brown demanding a ban on the controversial practice. The petition, which contained 184,000 signatures, was delivered Monday by a coalition of environmental progress groups, including the California-based Courage Campaign, Daily Kos, 350.org, Food and Water Watch, CREDO, Environmental Action, Presente, Forecast the Facts, and RH Reality Check.

SACRAMENTO (CN) - Thousands of anti-fracking protesters marched through Gov. Jerry Brown's hometown of Oakland Saturday and by Monday 113,000 of their signatures had crossed his desk at the state Capitol.